Fox dietary ecology as a tracer of human impact on Pleistocene ecosystems

PloS One
Chris BaumannNicholas J Conard

Abstract

Nowadays, opportunistic small predators, such as foxes (Vulpes vulpes and Vulpes lagopus), are well known to be very adaptable to human modified ecosystems. However, the timing of the start of this phenomenon in terms of human impact on ecosystems and of the implications for foxes has hardly been studied. We hypothesize that foxes can be used as an indicator of past human impact on ecosystems, as a reflection of population densities and consequently to track back the influence of humans on the Pleistocene environment. To test this hypothesis, we used stable isotope analysis (δ13C, δ15N) of bone collagen extracted from faunal remains from several archaeological sites located in the Swabian Jura (southwest Germany) and covering a time range over three important cultural periods, namely the Middle Palaeolithic (older than 42,000 years ago) attributed to Neanderthals, and the early Upper Palaeolithic periods Aurignacian and Gravettian (42,000 to 30,000 years ago) attributed to modern humans. We then ran Bayesian statistic systems (SIBER, mixSIAR) to reconstruct the trophic niches and diets of Pleistocene foxes. We observed that during the Middle Palaeolithic period, when Neanderthals sparsely populated the Swabian Jura, the niches ...Continue Reading

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Citations

Dec 19, 2020·Animals : an Open Access Journal From MDPI·Julie K YoungGidey Yirga
Mar 6, 2021·Scientific Reports·Chris BaumannVerena J Schuenemann

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Software Mentioned

R SIBER ( Stable Isotope Bayesian Ellipses in R )
JMP
FRUITS
MixSIAR
SIBER
R
R package SIBER
R package MixSIAR R
SIAR

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